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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566114">in this house like a louisiana graveyard</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood'>blackwood (transjon)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>162 inspired, Codependency, M/M, Tragedy, also gratuitous monster houses, gratuitous heart metaphors, season five</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:15:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,720</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you glad we never left?” Martin asks. </p><p>Jon looks at him. His freckles. His teeth. His nose. The tears escaping his eyes, not because he’s sad but rather because gravity is pulling them out of his tear ducts forcibly. He looks so sweet and Jon feels like a monster for keeping him all to himself, suddenly. The whole world deserves to bask in the warm, sweet glow of his kindness. How he’d forgiven Jon. How he’s here, and warm, and present, and real. </p><p>“Yes,” Jon says, and he doesn’t think he’s let any emotion creep into his voice. “I’m glad to be here with you.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>113</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in this house like a louisiana graveyard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i sat down and wrote this in a complete state of frenzy i legit cant even reread this sorry if theres like unfinished sentences i became illiterate immediately after writing the last sentence. im sorry like i legit couldnt stop until i got this out of my body</p><p>WELL 162, HUH??? THIS HOUSE IS A HEART??? CHRYSALIS??? COCOON??? [slams this on the table] CONSIDER THIS</p><p>title is from. southwood plantation road by the mountain goats, that has a completely different tone from this fic but i love it so.</p><p>warnings: weird twisted codependency. ambiguous ending (possible major character death). lots of gross blood stuff.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Inside the cabin there is quiet. </p><p>They sit by the fire. There’s always logs. Martin goes outside and collects them from the little shed at the edge of the property and comes back with his arms full, and Jon watches him with soft eyes. The fire makes everything warm and sweet and orange tinted. </p><p>The couch. The rug. Martin’s hands where they face the fireplace, and his glasses where they reflect, and the wall behind them. Warm. Jon buries his face in Martin’s neck and Martin kisses the top of his head, and in his throat Jon feels his heart pulse and pump blood through the arteries fast and irregular. </p><p>–</p><p>Martin gets up before Jon. </p><p>It’s surprising, in a way – Jon’d never thought he’d been lazy, or anything like that, not that he would sleep in every day, not at all, but it’s still surprising, in a way. Guess he’d never thought about it in much detail, but in all of his fantasies he’d been the first to wake up regardless. Wake up. Put on the kettle, or the coffee maker. Come back with his hands full of coffee or tea mugs. He’d know how Martin takes his hot drinks, and he’d set down the mugs on the nightstand and kiss Martin’s forehead, settle back into bed, and sip on his drink until Martin stirred awake. He’d get to watch him wake up, and it’d be like watching a sunrise, or a sunset, or an eclipse right when the moon finally slides out of the way. </p><p>It’s okay, though. Martin doesn’t bring anything back to bed, but when Jon stumbles down the stairs and into the little kitchen Martin’s got the kettle on. He doesn’t know how he times it so perfectly but the water is always the right temperature when he walks in, and there’s always a mug with a tea bag already in it waiting for him. If he asks nicely Martin will pop a slice of bread into the toaster for him as well. In the cupboard there’s a bottomless jar of Scottish clover honey. </p><p>“I love you,” he says, and watches Martin blush all the way down to his chest. </p><p>“I love you,” Martin says back, quiet and bashful and earnest. Jon wishes his hands weren’t full so he could take his face into his hands and kiss him. He always does, these days. </p><p>–</p><p>They develop their little routines. They build their lives around each other. Around them, the walls of the cabin trap heat and keep them warm and safe. Outside the world is sweet and lovely and big but loud, and inside here they are safe. They go outside. They come back in. They sit by the fire. Jon puts his head in Martin’s lap and it feels right. Being here feels right.</p><p>Martin’s hands. The gentle roar of the fire. For the first time in ages he feels safe enough to close his eyes around someone.</p><p>–</p><p>And then Elias –</p><p>–</p><p>The Eye opens. Jon tries not to think about it. </p><p>–</p><p>But God, how could he not? When it’s everywhere? When he was the one to open it? When Martin had left for just a few minutes and that’d been all it’d taken for him to do something like that? </p><p>–</p><p>“Martin.” The word comes out as a sob most days, including today. “Please.”</p><p>Martin knows. Martin sees him. Martin understands and sees and knows what’s wrong with him and Martin, benevolent, selfless Martin takes it and pretends it isn’t there. Is that bad? Is that wrong? He tells him to punish him for it, but Martin won’t do it. He wonders if it would be more meaningful if he did, or if it’d make it worse. He wants punishment, but more than that he wants forgiveness. He wants to be purified. Martin kisses him gently enough that he sometimes thinks he deserves it. </p><p>“Jon,” Martin replies, gentle. “What do you need?”</p><p>Jon chews on his lip. He wonders what it’d be like if it was Martin, instead, who compelled and asked and so sweetly tore his words out of his mouth. He wants things to be that easy. He doesn’t want to have to think so much. “Love me,” he says, finally. “Promise that you love me.”</p><p>And Martin, perfect, lovely Martin, takes his wrists into his hands and kisses his knuckles, one by one. “Always,” he says. “Always.”</p><p>–</p><p>The heat of the cabin is so comforting. It’s quiet. It’s all-encompassing. He’s never been inside a house that felt as accommodating as this one does. Daisy’s cabin. Daisy’s love. He thinks about pulling her out of the coffin. The suffocating, damp coldness of the ground all around them. He wonders if this is a metaphor for something. He feels delirious with guilt and fear. </p><p>–</p><p>“We need to get out,” Martin says every time he catches him listening to the tapes Elias sends him or that materialize around the cabin. </p><p>“I can’t,” Jon whispers, “I’m not ready.”</p><p>Ready for what? For the journey? The physicality of it? The hundreds of miles of wasteland? Resisting the screams and the pain and the hunger and the fear? Or something else? Is there anything else? Ready to say goodbye to the gentle lull of their safe little nest? Ready to fly out? Break out of this cocoon?</p><p>“Okay,” Martin says, gentle enough that Jon wants to cry. Faith. Loyalty. Jon wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him until some of it falls out. He wants to put it in his own body. He wants to eat it. He wants it for himself. </p><p>–</p><p>The eye reflects light all night where the moon used to. Jon watches the shadows move up and down the hallway as the light of the pale pupil highlights every piece of furniture one by one. </p><p>The couch. The hallway rug. The barstools. The dining table. The curtains.</p><p>–</p><p>Have the curtains always been red? </p><p>–</p><p>Martin doesn’t dream as much as he has nightmares. Jon toys with the idea of turning nightmare into a verb. He holds Martin through them and tries to wake him up but he never can, no matter how he tries. </p><p>“I love you,” he says into his skin, “I love you, I love you, I love you…”</p><p>–</p><p>Martin wants to leave. Jon doesn’t. He doesn’t compel him because he doesn’t have to, because Martin doesn’t want to go without him. Or maybe he just can’t make it out there alone and he knows it. </p><p>–</p><p>Jon likes to think it’s because he loves him too much to leave him. Most days he believes it with his whole heart. </p><p>–</p><p>“It’s safe. And I have you.”</p><p>He’s repeated that general idea so many times now his mouth moves around the words almost without his permission. Oh but how soft Martin’s eyes go every time, how sweet he looks, how quietly he moves across the room and how lovely his lips feel on his, every time –</p><p>–</p><p>“Okay,” Martin says, eventually. “Let’s stay here.”</p><p>And Jon doesn’t know why the soft look of helpless devotion makes Jon feel like he’d just smothered a moth in the warm, firm grasp of his hand. Between his fingers he swears he can feel the powder of its wings. Martin takes his hand into his own. The spreading powder all over his hand doesn’t go away.</p><p>–</p><p>The soft, lovely red of all of the surfaces around them. He wonders when the water started leaking in through the gap under the door. The water is warm and nice. It’s fine. After all, it’s been raining a long time now.</p><p>–</p><p>The walls pulse and throb. Jon leans against one. It’s warm and damp. It feels lovely. </p><p>–</p><p>And pressing Martin against these walls feels even nicer – the give of the spongy red envelopes the both of them like a blanket and Martin kisses him back like he’s too hungry to stop to breathe, and Jon loves him so much he can barely hear him speak over the buzz of blood in his head. He thinks, <i>this is my becoming. Shrine for love. There will be nothing more important and nothing more. This is everything. This is all that matters. If becoming a place feels like this I want to be a</i> where <i>that people can put on a map.</i> </p><p>–</p><p>This rotten heart love. This bad tooth love. This infected knee scrape love. Martin kisses the back of his neck and Jon holds onto his hands with a white-knuckled grip. </p><p>–</p><p>Around them the water level rises to their knees. They build a platform for their bed out of old books and pieces of firewood. </p><p>–</p><p>“I don’t want to drown,” Martin says quietly. </p><p>Jon turns around in his arms and kisses the tip of his nose on an impulse. “You’re not going to drown.”</p><p>“Promise?” he asks. He sounds so small. Jon could swear his voice used to be louder. These soft, loving walls around them seem to suck and take whatever sounds they make. Nothing echoes. Everything stays concentrated and present. </p><p>“Always,” Jon says. The water radiates heat up the wooden legs. A warning, maybe. A comfort, nevertheless.</p><p>–</p><p>They watch together as the water gradually rises by the front door. There’s a point of no return to celebrate with solemn reverence and Jon points it out to Martin when it happens. Martin nods, quiet, slow, and Jon closes his eyes to bask in it. </p><p>O the thing that sealed them in their eternal happiness. O the thing that has immortalized their love.</p><p>They wade back up the stairs in the hot water and by the time they get back in the bed the heat has gotten unbearable. Jon kisses up Martin’s shins and Martin shivers gently. The pain is gentle. Jon knows it for himself. Inside of his wet clothes his skin sings a little grateful song for the realness of it all.</p><p>–</p><p>Hopefully they’ll drown before the heat of the water cooks them alive. </p><p>–</p><p>After that Martin’s nightmares stop. A few days later he stops sleeping altogether.</p><p>–</p><p>“Are you glad we never left?” Martin asks. </p><p>Jon looks at him. His freckles. His teeth. His nose. The tears escaping his eyes, not because he’s sad but rather because gravity is pulling them out of his tear ducts forcibly. He looks so sweet and Jon feels like a monster for keeping him all to himself, suddenly. The whole world deserves to bask in the warm, sweet glow of his kindness. How he’d forgiven Jon. How he’s here, and warm, and present, and real. </p><p>“Yes,” Jon says, and he doesn’t think he’s let any emotion creep into his voice. “I’m glad to be here with you.”</p><p>–</p><p>The rotten legs of the bed. The smell of decay. Martin holds onto him with the strength of a dying man and Jon holds him back like he’s afraid if he doesn’t he’s going to lose him. Jon hasn’t been afraid in weeks. </p><p>–</p><p>From this angle the water looks like blood. If Jon holds Martin just so he knows Martin won’t be able to see it.</p><p>–</p><p>“Do you regret it?” Jon asks. </p><p>Martin takes a long time to respond. His fingers still in Jon’s hair. “No,” he says eventually. Jon hums encouragingly when he doesn’t say anything more. “I don’t know what there could be, out there that I’d care about. I’m sure I used to care about something out there. But I can’t quite find it in myself to care anymore.”</p><p>Jon has never cared about anything beyond the two of them, or if he has he doesn’t remember it. He kisses the back of Martin’s other hand, then. He wonders what he ever did to deserve him. He knows he doesn’t.</p><p>“I have you,” Jon says quietly. “And you have me.”</p><p>“I have you,” Martin repeats back, not quite smiling. “That’s all I need.” </p><p>–</p><p>This cabin is going to be their tomb, he knows. He knows it from his guts. From his teeth. From behind his eyes. He knows it from the depths of all of the cavities in his body. </p><p>This bed is the altar of their sacrifice. What’s being sacrificed? What’s being canonized? What’s being celebrated? Who are they being sacrificed to?</p><p>–</p><p>He’d wanted Martin to be a part of him. He’d wanted to inhale him, piece by piece, and keep him in his lungs, let him reassemble himself like a lego monster until he grew into something heavy and real again. This isn’t what he’d wanted. </p><p>–</p><p>But god it’s so beautiful, here –</p><p>Everything lovingly backlit. They’re so happy. Jon traces little words of love into the space between Martin’s clavicle and bottom ribs. Martin doesn’t cry. At night when the waves lap at the edges of the mattress Jon spits ink and pieces of torn up tape into the little sea of love and watches it float away, and Martin doesn’t tell him to stop.</p><p>–</p><p>It never stops raining. </p><p>They can’t see out the windows because they’ve been submerged in the water, by this point, but Jon knows it’s raining. He just does. The rain lashes at the walls like an unforgiving priest at a repenting man.</p><p>Jon has nothing to repent for. Martin curls into a little ball and nestles into Jon’s arms and his blood is alive with the promise of endless, beautiful becoming.</p><p>–</p><p>Pulsing. Thumping. Continuous motion. Jon wishes he’d always known this kind of peace. He wishes he’d come here sooner.</p><p>–</p><p>The roof caves in under the unrelenting pressure and after that the water rises so fast it’s hard to keep track of.</p><p>–</p><p>He hopes they’ll drown before they boil alive.</p><p>–</p><p>Is this his sacrifice? Is there anything to sacrifice? He looks at the top of Martin’s head as he holds him and wonders. There is no sacrificial lamb here. Just the two of us, and the safe, yielding containment of something living and sweet. </p><p>–</p><p>He knows that Martin’s been afraid before. He’s not afraid anymore. Jon has never known fear like this before. What is the sacrifice? Who’s being sacrificed? What is this altar for?</p><p>–</p><p>What is there left to say? When they lie in bed the water threatens to fill their mouths. It’d be gentle, Jon knows. Drowning would be so easy. That, too, would be gentle.</p><p>–</p><p>Martin’s fingers in his mouth. It’s all he ever wanted. He blinks and in the split seconds before his eyes close or open completely he sees things he never has before. All these visions of things he doesn’t understand. Elias, in the Archives, thinks about him, and he sees it as a vision. Martin kisses his chest and Jon folds himself around him. Moth to flame. Above them the eye stares directly at him through the hole in the roof. Jon stares back and thinks <i>I dare you. I dare you to touch us. This thing will keep us safe. This thing will contain us forever.</i></p><p>–</p><p>He spits out a length of tape. Martin pulls the rest of it out of his mouth. Outside the rain continues to pour. Martin’s legs shake from exertion as they kneel on the bed. The water still reaches to his mid thigh. Jon holds his hand to make sure he doesn’t float away. </p><p>–</p><p>That night the Eye blinks down at Jon like a cat, slow and friendly and loving and languid. <i>I don’t want to hurt you,<i> it says. Jon blinks back, pleased and forgiving. Martin’s head on his shoulder makes him feel forgiving and kind and giving. Something in his throat dislodges itself and travels down his neck and down into his lungs.</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i>–</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Guess the water was never that hot all along. Guess climbing a wall was never that hard all along.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>–</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Out of the caved in roof Jon emerges, monstrous and beautiful and ready. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Martin,” he exhales into the room they’d lived in for so long. “Martin.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Inside the cabin nothing responds. No echo. No sound. The waves lap at the upper edges of the walls, and the shape of the bed is no longer visible through the water. Foam and thick coagulation and little bits of viscera. Jon watches as the walls push and pull it around. He sticks a hand down blindly. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Martin.”</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>From the depths of the rotten, flooded cave of their love comes a distant sound of insects buzzing.</i>
  </i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>im on tumblr @ blqckwoods</p></blockquote></div></div>
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